


fiat lux (et facta est lux)

by schism



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash really, bittersweet undertones, gotham city as (a metaphor for) hell, more allusions to dante than i want to admit to, splits from canon somewhere around s04e03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-01-29 12:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12631317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schism/pseuds/schism
Summary: Ten years after his mysterious disappearance, the Riddler returns to Gotham.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [fiat lux (et facta est lux) – Vietnamese Translation: Thắp lên ánh sáng](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453811) by [Nfowleri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nfowleri/pseuds/Nfowleri)



> i'm trying out a bit of a different style of writing for this one, a bit more... over-the-top poetic kind if you will.
> 
> i'm also blending show-canon with elements from other 'verses, most significantly ed's brief stint as a private detective/consultant.
> 
> we'll see how it goes.
> 
> minor edit note 20/11/2017: currently undergoing partial rewriting and fixing of... errors i didn't notice the first time around etc. 

_I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice_.

* Dante, **_Inferno_**

 

_I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down the dark descent, and up to reascend..._

*Milton, **_Paradise Lost_**

***

 

There are as many versions of afterlife as there are cultures in the world and then some.

There is, of course, the populistic Western dichotomy of Heaven and Hell, stuffed down the throats of believers and deniers _ad nauseum_. There is also Hel, and Xibalba, and Naraka, and Yomi, and Hades, and Tărâmul Celălalt, and Annwn, and countless others. 

Because there has to be  _something_ ; because the alternative is far too dreadful to consider.

Because even though they bear different names, the idea remains the same.

Which is all to say the notion that life doesn’t end with death seems common enough to be a part of the human condition.

 

For most of humanity, the afterlife – eternal torment or eternal paradise or both, whichever the case may be – remains forever an unreachable place, its existence confirmed solely by conviction, not experience.

 _Go to Hell_ , they’ll say, and not expect you to get going.

For others, Hell is waiting just around the corner, the road to it just a few steps away from the door of that bar their father used to go to every night to drink away the misery of his life, a three-hour drive from the park they used to walk the dog in when they were children, teeth chattering in the freezing cold of winter, the backs of their necks sweating in the sweltering heat of summer.

 _Hell is other people_ , Sartre wrote; _Heaven is a place on Earth_ , Belinda Carlisle sang.

Both were right, in their own way.

Which is all to say there are as many versions of Hell – and of Heaven – as there are humans on Earth and then some.

To citizens of Gotham, Heaven is just a fairytale, but Hell… see, Hell is just another Tuesday night and its demons are the freaks that roam the streets, a self-fulfilling prophecy of gods among men.

 _Lock your doors tight, don’t venture outside after sundown, don’t go into alleyways even during the day, keep your friends close and your gun on your bedside drawer_ is a common lullaby in a city that doesn’t sleep, a city that spends its time clutching at bedsheets and desperately hoping the sound of gunfire on the streets doesn’t penetrate the delicate shell of the building it’s hiding in.

It’s a long while before finally, finally there is a glimmer of hope, a flickering candleflame standing brave and incandescent against the backdrop of shadows, wavering in the clouds as a bat; a dark knight on wings that whisper unfounded promises of safety, his hands fixing and breaking in equal measure, fighting a losing battle to save a city that doesn’t dare to believe it can be saved.

That time comes faster than anyone could hope it to, but at the same time, still leaves them locking their doors and clutching weapons beneath their pillows.

Still, somehow, some let themselves believe the Bat keeps them safe.

They _need_ to believe it.

The age of monsters is coming to an end but not just yet, not before they rip apart the city, unstoppable for the last time – or perhaps unstoppable for good, locked in eternal battle for _something_ in the bowels of Hell.

To put it frankly, the jury is still out on that.

And in any case, this is not a story about the Bat.


	2. Part I

If Dante was indeed correct about the words engraved above the gates of Hell, the same words would be fit to adorn the doors of the Iceberg Lounge quite perfectly: _abandon every hope, ye that enter._

It’s possible the Lounge, or perhaps the idea of it, existed long before its proprietor’s ancestors even set foot in the city or picked up a sharp rock to bash something dead with.

The concept of that place which will become a heaven, a hell, and a purgatory of its own in the years to come stands foggy in the memory of ever-ticking time. Perhaps it’s a liminal space, existing outside of time as much as it does within it. In any case, a place such as that needs a _genius loci_ , quite in the visceral sense, someone able to tie something intangible to the tangible world.

In short, what it needs is a proprietor, and on a cold autumn night in a dark, dirty alleyway, it finds one in Oswald Cobblepot.

As Plato theorized, ideas are eternal and enduring – and so the Lounge must be the same.

Its proprietor, however… not necessarily.

Two years after the Bat finally takes to the skies, it’s been ten years since Oswald’s first death. A little less than ten years since falling and falling and falling endlessly through the air before hitting freezing water, then sinking and sinking and sinking endlessly until the dirt at the bottom of the bay scrapes at his heels, sinking until there’s nowhere left to go.

In another life, perhaps he would’ve fought long before things ever got that far.

In another life, perhaps he would’ve let the waters claim him.

But even in Hell there remains a gleam of the fickle thing called Fate, and Fate is not done with him just yet – he’s tied to something eternal and enduring, tied to the Lounge in a way that demands his presence as well as his blood.

And gods know he’s shed enough and bled enough for a hundred lifetimes.

So, Oswald Cobblepot emerges from the water, not quite victorious but not defeated, either, claws his way back to the top and gets his revenge, or at least as much of it as Fate will allow.

To live is to die a thousand deaths.

_Before me nothing was created but eternal things and I endure eternally._

Gods among men.

Monsters among gods.

Wolves in sheepskin and sheep in wolf-skin.

Good luck figuring out which is which.

It’s been almost ten years since his heart took its leave, vanished into the night without a trace, leaving behind naught but an icy puddle and unanswered questions.

And the Penguin had searched, had wasted two years trying to locate that pesky runaway to no avail; after that, more immediate concerns had grabbed his attention.

His heart could wait.

The city could not.

 

***

 

His heart returns precisely ten years after the last time, poignantly poetic to the last.

The years have been kind, kinder than they’ve been to him anyhow, and it’s been forever but it’s also been just a moment, nearly a quarter of his life passing both in the blink of an eye and dragging on endlessly.

In short, it’s been a long time.

Perhaps far longer than it should’ve been.

The Lounge is closed, the last straggling customers gone and the staff on their way to their homes, wherever those may be – it’s not as if he cares enough to remember.

What would it matter anyway, now that he’s finally carved for himself a place in the city?

The Penguin provides a much-needed service, rakes in the cash and doesn’t get involved in politics anymore.

Being the public face of the criminal underworld only caused him grief, back in the day, and he knows better now.

But none of that matters in the end: his heart returns, and undoubtedly brings war.

And isn’t it just the testament to the foolish muscle in his chest that its beating quickens even after all this time, after all those years spent learning to forget. To forget the precise color of the eyes still hidden by a pair of glasses, to forget the line of that throat, still constrained by a tie as it ever was back then, to forget the curl of those lips and the line of that jaw.

Ten years, all down the drain the moment his heart walks into the room as if it’s just any other night; the voice that still haunts his dreams speaks his name, and it echoes with the weight of eternity, draining the air from his lungs, leaving a bittersweet taste of defeat on his tongue.

This feels like a dream.

Not like the ones where he’s falling and falling and falling endlessly through the air before hitting freezing water, then sinking and sinking and sinking endlessly until the dirt at the bottom of the bay scrapes at his heels, until there’s nowhere left to go.

No, this one is far more insidious, because it leaves him with hope; hope for what exactly, he doesn’t know.

Against the backdrop of silver and navy blue, his heart is a splash of green, terrifying and beautiful all at once, demanding every shred of his attention.

An ending, then; Oswald doesn’t let himself consider it to be anything else.

So, he turns his back, walks over to the bar and pours himself a drink.

“ _I expect you’re here to kill me, old friend_ ,” he says once he’s finished the drink, his back still turned.

The words echo through the room, a coda for a piece yet to be written.

“ _I am not as I used to be_ ,” his heart replies with a huff of disbelieving laughter, moving closer still until he’s leaning against the bar, sparks of amusement in those eyes behind the mask bright enough to singe. “ _I’m glad to see that doesn’t apply to you_.”

“ _As if_ you _would know_ ,” he snaps, his hand unsteady as he pours himself another glass. “ _You left._ ”

His heart laughs again, amusement replaced by… fondness?

Something alarming like that, anyway.

“ _I’m not here to kill you, Oswald, if that’s what you’re worried about_ ,” his heart says and leans in, close enough that he should be able to sense the soft flow of breath to and from his lungs.

But there is none.

His heart draws back, laughs as his face contorts into something dreadful.

The next thing he knows, he’s bolting upright in bed with a lump in his throat and a cramp in his bad leg.

Just a dream.

Just a horrible, treacherous dream.

 

***

 

The ten-year anniversary passes, uneventful and not even the least bit poetic.

There’s a pesky Bat on the streets, and he lets others run after it, content in the life he’s built. Not happy, per se, but content. Happiness is a flavor long forgotten, buried somewhere deep within like the memory of his parents.

Maybe he _is_ getting too old for this.

The television set in the corner of his office blares newsreel after newsreel of yet another escape attempt by that grinning lunatic, and with it the latest sighting of the Bat. The public still doesn’t know whether to believe that it’s real, two years of videoclips and photos still not enough proof for people who don’t dare to trust.

He knows better.

He’s seen the Bat, spoken to him, even. Has heard the gravelly, tinny sound of the voice modulator booming through the Lounge, has watched the Bat hissing threats and presenting ultimatums as if it had any leverage – while he might not be a genius, Oswald is smart enough to know how to launder his income, how to stay out of the Bat's field of vision for the most part.

Smart enough to know that those who chase after the Bat will always play a losing hand.

The Penguin has lost enough good employees and customers to the Bat’s care as it is, shipped away into the bowels of Arkham and forgotten until they either lose themselves entirely or crawl back out to resume their old tricks, twisting and contorting into something he doesn't recognize.

He’d said as much to the Bat, laughed in its face when it had come to him, when it had expected him to cower just like the parade of costumed freaks that follows in its wake.

Unlike so many of them, Oswald still has the capability to keep himself in check.

And he’d noticed a hint of disappointment in the slant of the Bat’s shoulders once it realized its posturing hadn’t achieved anything, saw the turning of the cogs in its mind as the Bat regarded him silently, painfully reminiscent of something – some _one_ – he’d been meaning to forget.

The Bat must’ve noticed too – so, perhaps not an avenging devil from the netherworld after all but indeed a man, somewhere underneath all that Kevlar and leather – and must have known something about his past, because it had backed off. Surprising, considering its customary violence, but it’s not like he wants the Bat on his back in the first place. 

 _Go chase that mirthful maniac of yours_ , he’d said, familiar exhaustion washing over him in waves. _Or Scarecrow; I heard he’s back in town again. Or the Sionis kid, or Tetch, or Zsasz, or Grundy, or Croc, or any number of the others – there are plenty of freaks for you to play with._

 _Don’t think yourself any different from them, Penguin_ , it had replied, crossing its arms, pointedly stressing the moniker, its eyes probably narrowed somewhere behind that cowl and all that eyeshadow. _You’re a criminal, too. You’ll get what you deserve._

 _And there will be justice for all_ , he’d answered, raising his glass to salute the Bat, smiling benignly. _Go play with the other kids. Leave an old man alone._

The Bat had scoffed, irritated at the dismissal, but… everyone knows the Bat doesn’t kill, fueled by divine justice as it is. And the Bat had known as well as Oswald himself did that he'd done nothing to warrant its attention, at least not on that particular night.

 _I’ll be watching you_ , it had said, leaving the ominous warning wafting in the air between them.

Almost adorable, really, that confidence, that conviction. As if it really believed the Penguin was just another one of the kids playing kings and queens on the city streets.

 _You won’t find anything_ , he’d replied, taking a long sip from his glass, smile still firmly in place. _Don’t waste your time_.

The Bat had scoffed a second time but, thankfully, had finally turned to leave after another ominous threat or two.

Oswald had waited until he was sure it had finally left before letting the smile drop.

 

***

 

He should’ve known to expect the unexpected.

Hadn’t he said it himself, all those years ago?

_I know you._

There were whispers at first, shared in quiet confidence among his patrons, whispers that reached his ears a day or two too late. Perhaps then Oswald would’ve been better prepared, would’ve had time to come up with some strategy – but after all this time, what does he know of the man who stands in front of him now, flesh and blood instead of a half-forgotten dream?

It’s almost funny to see him now, looking quite the same and yet completely different, like a stranger wearing the body of his former friend like an ill-fitting costume. A hint of gray at his temples, a few new lines creasing his forehead, but the eyes, behind the mask that has replaced the glasses... Even after all this time, the eyes are the same.

However, who looks back from behind them is not who he used to be, doesn’t look at him the way he used to, shows no emotion beyond a sliver of curiosity.

No anger, no relief, no happiness – nothing at all.

An ending, then; Oswald doesn’t let himself consider it to be anything else.

He almost manages to convince himself it's another dream, but his erratic heartbeat and nervous hands help ground him.

It’s really happening.

 _He_ is back, after all this time; exactly ten years and one month after he left; poignantly poetic after all.

“I expect you’re here to kill me, old friend,” Oswald says, the words faint in the large, empty space.

It would’ve been nicer to have a public execution, he supposes, would’ve rather had Ed show up at rush hour when the Lounge is filled with patrons and staff. Filled with witnesses, really, although he expects whatever painful way has been devised for his death will be a thing of marvel anyhow, even without an audience.

Maybe even something to be grateful for.

He's always loved a spectacle, after all.

His heart – Ed, he has to remind himself, it's just Ed – stares back at him, eyes indecipherable behind the mask.

It’s as if not a trace remains of the man he used to be, and oh, how much easier would it be if he was faced with hatred.

That, he understands, had known how to deal with – or at least had known how to respond to.

But this, this is something new, something alien: not quite Ed, not quite the Riddler, either.

He doesn’t know what to make of it.

The silence is heavy, almost oppressive in its weight, laden by… something.

All this standing up has his bad leg throbbing with discomfort threatening to broach pain, so he accepts his fate, whatever it may be, sits down at the bar and pours himself a drink.

A minute later, the sound of the heavy door closing makes him turn, full glass of wine still in hand, to find the room behind him empty.

To live is to die a thousand deaths.

 

***

 

The next few weeks are quiet.

The Bat is out there, somewhere, shaping the city with a flurry of punches and kicks, for now only an inconvenience. He dreads the day it decides to become more.

Ed Nygma is out there, somewhere, too.

He doesn’t know where, exactly, knows the information is available to him at the wave of his hand, and yet…

It would be a temptation, that knowledge.

Perhaps an olive branch.

Perhaps a weapon. One he doesn’t know whether he wants to pick up again.

Things have changed in the past ten years.

 _He_ has changed.

It seems Ed has, too.

And knowing what he’s doing is different than knowing where he’s doing it from; he knows Ed seems to have turned from their once-shared profession and gone legitimate.

Edward Nygma, a private investigator.

Once he’d gotten over the initial surprise, he’d wanted to laugh; more Ed than Riddler, after all.

Perhaps a business visit should be in order. After all, he’s made a point in painting himself into a purveyor of information because there was no one else.

Because if he was doing it already, why not make money off it?

Because if this is the fourth circle, he’s Plutus. Granted, maybe not as powerful as he used to be, but he still has sway, coupled with an air of legitimacy. Ruling from the shadows is easier than being in the spotlight, after all.

To be fair, running the Lounge is lucrative enough on its own, but coupled with its popularity in the criminal circles as well as the one-percentile one, well... _that_ is just a recipe for success.

People pay good money to gawk at Gotham’s freaks, after all.

And whether he likes it or not, for better or worse, some people still remember the Riddler.

Adding him to the array of patrons would be beneficial for both, wiping the slate clean and starting over even more so.

But there’s no guarantee Ed would see it the same way, Riddler or not.

Then again... what does Oswald have to lose?

For ten years, knowing he was out there somewhere was enough.

But Oswald is greedy, has never denied that about himself because it’s exactly what’s gotten him this far, exactly what’s kept him hungry and alive for all these years; because while the risk may be great, the reward could be priceless.

And it’s exactly why he opens the ledger, finds the information he’s denied himself for a week and a half, leaves his house just before sunset.

_Before me nothing was created but eternal things and I endure eternally._

The words echo at the back of his mind like a mantra as he makes his way to the address he’s looked at for so long it’s half-memorized, watching the buildings flit past the car window like snapshots of a dream.

 

***

 

Despite its almost-tasteful abundance of question marks, Ed’s office is surprisingly nice. Oswald imagines the rest of the apartment is the same – not that he can see it from where he’s sitting, anyway, but knowing Ed, it’s not hard to imagine it has its charms.

Speaking of.

A business meeting.

That’s all this is supposed to be.

All he can allow it to be.

And yet…

Looking at Ed, with his smart suit and his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose just like old times, sitting at the desk with his fingers laced together and looking so much like he had back when they first met, when he’d first…

It’s more difficult than he’d anticipated.

Still, he hasn’t been killed _just_ yet. Maybe there is a sliver of hope left.

The silence is heavy, heavier than it had been back at the Lounge. This time, Oswald has made the first move, and it’s the anticipation that’s getting to him, making him want to fidget in his seat like a naughty child who’s been caught stealing from the cookie jar.

Because he had spoken first, before.

_I expect you’re here to kill me, old friend._

Now it’s Ed’s turn.

Almost as if he’d followed that same train of thought, Ed speaks.

“Why are you here, Oswald?” he asks, voice like that of a stranger and like that of a lover, soft in some half-remembered way while his eyes still betray nothing but a detached sort of curiosity.

Oswald suppresses the shiver running down his spine at the sound of that voice, crosses his arms and asks, “Why are you?” before he even realizes he’s doing it.

Because just like that, it’s as if the ten years are nothing but a dream and he’s young again, staring down the barrel of a gun and unable to help himself.

Eliciting that reaction by his mere presence, now _that_ alone makes Ed dangerous, with or without any plans he might be hatching.

“A diamond plate, a glowing grate, a place you never leave,” Ed says, pulling him out of his thoughts, glancing out the window at the darkening skyline before fixing his gaze on Oswald. “Where am I?”

 _Home_.

He doesn’t say the word out loud, but Ed doesn’t look like he's expecting him to.

“It’s been ten years. I sincerely doubt homesickness was the catalyst for your return,” Oswald says, keeping his tone even.

Ed grins, a flash of his younger self somewhere behind those features that are the same but not quite, friendly enough but not untouched by an air of warning.

If there’s anything Oswald’s ever been good at, it’s ignoring Ed’s warnings.

“Why did you come back?” he asks, dreading the answer, whatever it may be. He’s setting himself up for disappointment, he knows, doesn’t doubt that Ed knows which answer he wants – and doesn’t doubt that Ed can offer the exact one that’ll cut the deepest.

“When I'm metal or wood, I help you get home. When I'm flesh and I'm blood, in darkness I roam. What am I?” Ed replies, leaning back in his chair, watching Oswald for his reaction.

_A bat._

Of course he’s here because of the Bat.

Oswald knows he shouldn’t have expected anything else.

Still, knowing and _knowing_ are different things.

“I wanted to see ‘ _The World’s Greatest Detective_ ’ for myself,” Ed continues after a moment of quiet has passed, a note of amusement in his voice, hands untangling to punctuate the moniker with air quotes – a dismissal, albeit one tinged with curiosity.

“The Bat is just some kid,” Oswald says, disappointment leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Ed’s not back because of him after all. Part of him wonders why he’d let himself think that, after all this time. “I doubt he’d be of any interest to you.”

 _Old friend_ , he wants to add, but knows at this point, it’d sound more like a threat than what he means it as, so he lets it be.

Ed cocks his head, watches him with those hazel eyes and smiles again. “If my informants are to be believed, this _Bat_ man is some sort of demon, risen from the bowels of Hell itself to smite the wicked.”

And oh, how Oswald wants to laugh at that – and yet, not a sound escapes his throat.

Gods among men.

Monsters among gods.

Wolves in sheepskin and sheep in wolf-skin.

Good luck figuring out which is which.


	3. Part II

Ed leaves Gotham.

He leaves because he can see the city is unsafe, carnage spilling all over the streets even as he stumbles away from the empty apartment he’d woken up in, his clothes in tatters and soaking, frostbite nipping at his fingers.

He leaves because he doesn’t know where he is or why, doesn’t even know who he is, ditches the – admittedly eye-catching – green suit at the first opportunity, and gets out of the city.

He leaves because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He leaves because he doesn’t know.

Which isn’t to say he’s not plagued by nightmares. Though his waking mind can’t – or _won’t_ – recall who he is or what happened to him, the memories aren’t gone and neither are the emotions they evoke.

He’s angry without knowing why, all the while a nagging thought at the back of his mind suggesting there’s unfinished business in Gotham and that he needs to go back. 

A half-remembered melody.

Ghosts from the past.

Restless, relentless.

Ghosts he doesn’t know how to let go.

From the outside, the city of Gotham seems like something from a horrible fairytale, a town cursed by some evil witch.

The scarce memories he has of his time there, both good and bad, seem like a dream at first, finally getting corroboration when he’s lying low in a suburb of Metropolis four years after his departure, rigging up a receiver to catch Gotham’s television channels.

_If the place isn’t real, there won’t be anything to catch._

Seconds after he allows himself to think that, the telltale chime of the Gotham City evening news plays, unnervingly reminiscent of gunfire, an opening of floodgates that can never be closed again.

Floodgates that may have been better off remaining shut.

By the time he’s in full control of his facilities once again, four years have passed from his thawing, the exact circumstances of which continue to elude recollection; a source of constant irritation, yes, but not urgent enough for it to demand much attention after the fact.

What would be the point, anyway?

It’s been four years.

_I wear you down, yet you'll mourn me once I fly. You can kill me, but I will never die._

He supposes it’s a good thing that the Penguin is a flightless bird.

And as much as a part of Ed is screaming to get back to Gotham as soon as he can, to make up for the time he’s wasted, it’s also been long enough that he has managed to, for the lack of a better word, cool down. To shed his old name, his old identity, once more.

It would do him no good to run back without resources, without contacts. Without a plan.

Patience is the key to revenge, after all.

 

***

 

_I will be born anew. And I will leave you behind._

Turns out spite is quite the powerful motivator.

He starts the detective business sometime during the eighth year, reinvents himself once again. And he could very well have gotten himself any job he likes, to start working his way up yet another career ladder, but for what? To once again be in the employ of incompetent idiots, yapping and yowling and infuriating him at every turn?

The very thought sickens him.

But to be his own boss… now  _that_ is something worth his while.

Of course, starting the business in Gotham would’ve been easier, if only for increased publicity.

After all, it’s not every day that a criminal starts a business dedicated to solving crimes – most of Gotham’s don’t survive long enough to even get the idea.

And despite how much he tries to avoid thinking of it, he dreams of the city almost every night.

Of all he’s done and all he’s failed to do.

Of all he’s left behind.

A siren call beckoning from somewhere beyond the horizon, drawing him in no matter how hard he tries to resist.

_I may be driven by my emotions, but you are driven by something much more predictable: a desperate, compulsive need to complete what you've started in exacting fashion._

At this point, it’s mostly pride preventing him from returning; the closest he’ll allow himself to go is Blüdhaven – plenty of crimes to solve there, even if his gaze inevitably drifts towards the horizon where he knows Gotham to be lying in wait.

In that sense, the whole private detective gig is a distraction of sorts, an opportunity to make money off his intellect and panache but also, and perhaps most importantly, an opportunity to show off.

In other ways, it’s merely an excuse to postpone his inevitable return a little while longer.

He manages to last a year in Blüdhaven before the city’s stench and his persistent curiosity finally get the best of him; strange winds are blowing in Gotham, carrying a Bat among the clouds. His informants whisper of unrest, of a flicker of hope amidst the shadows, of Gotham’s very own Hero.

A part of him wonders what newly appointed Commissioner Gordon thinks of that.

Another part of him thinks of the Bat’s effect on the criminal underworld, laughs because the empire must be in ruins – and as much as he hates to think of a particular old friend, he can’t help but wonder.

Which, as it’s wont to do, brings with it thoughts he’s kept locked away for a long, long time.

 _To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god_ , Borges wrote, dissecting Dante’s little piece of Hell at the gates of Heaven, a nightmare cloaked in the skin of the one he’d loved. Dissecting the tragedy of Dante and his unreachable, cold love, distant as burning stars cradled by a darkened sky.

Some days, Ed doesn’t know if it’s the city itself he misses, or something – some _one_ – else, a possibility he refuses to even consider.

Still, some thoughts can only be ignored, not avoided, so instead he thinks of Paolo and Francesca, bound as one in a whirlwind; in the second circle; in perpetuity; in just injustice offering an answer to reciprocal love born with wrong timing.

Two people locked together, despite – or, more accurately, because of – what they’d wanted.

A cruel twist of even crueler fate.

 _Who never from me shall separate_.

Isn’t that punishment enough?

 

***

 

Coming back to Gotham may have been a mistake.

Ed doesn’t realize this for the first time in that week, not even for the third or fourth.

No, the pervasive feeling that accompanies digging up ghosts from the past that would be better left buried,  _that_ has been present ever since he set foot in the city.

A feeling that has been present since he’d set foot Blüdhaven, really – knowing that the past nine-something years of remaking himself have culminated in this, in crawling back right where he came from, running home with his tail between his legs.

Well, perhaps not exactly, because he isn’t returning defeated, but he isn’t returning victorious, either.

_I will be born anew. And I will leave you behind._

Spoken with such confidence despite knowing deep down that they were lies, even back then – because here he is, back home after years of consciously and conscientiously staying away, despite all the effort he’d wasted on trying to forget.

_You are driven by something much more predictable: a desperate, compulsive need to complete what you've started in exacting fashion._

Despite his best laid plans, all the coaching and coaxing of himself to shut down the little voice at the back of his mind that whispers doubt, it seems that no matter how long he would’ve taken, no matter the cleverness and ingenuity of his plans, it’s all been for nothing.

Because he’d completely frozen when he’d paid his visit to the new Iceberg Lounge, when he’d stood there, heartbeat running rampant and palms sweating like a teenager on a first date even as he felt the phantom bite of the cryogun on his skin.

Because all roads have led him back to Gotham.

Because Oswald had spoken first, before.

It’s his turn now.

“Why are you here?” he asks, dreading the answer.

“Why are you?” is the childish reply, crossed arms and a frown just like he remembers.

Once he’s finally face to face with all he’s left behind, the one riddle he manages to come out with reveals a lot more than he intends it to; takes him back to the fumbling young man he’d once been, flustered under the attention of others in a way he hasn’t been for years, erases all the distance and all the time to leave him uncertain once more.

_A diamond plate, a glowing grate, a place you never leave._

“It’s been ten years,” Oswald says, keeping his tone even but still sounding tired, weary in a way that is not entirely unfamiliar. “I sincerely doubt homesickness was the catalyst for your return.”

Ed knows it was foolish to expect everything to remain the same for ten years, for the city to remain endlessly suspended in time, awaiting his return for the Earth to start turning again. Can see as much every time he looks in a mirror, if he’s being honest.

But still, it’s a little bit disappointing and a little bit thrilling after all this time, despite – or because of – Oswald’s insistence that he knows Ed better than Ed knows himself, to see that conviction proven false.

He is not as he was.

Neither is Oswald.

Neither is the city.

So, Ed smiles, showing just a little bit too many teeth, tries to bring things back to a level he knows how to deal with.

_I expect you’re here to kill me, old friend._

A half-remembered melody.

Ghosts from the past.

Restless, relentless.

Ghosts he doesn’t know how to let go.

_To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god._

For the first time in years, Ed thinks of Isabella.

And isn’t that proof enough?

“Why did you come back?” Oswald asks, bringing him back to the small office, to the smooth finish of his new desk, to the last fading slivers of sunlight breaching through the city’s perpetual cloud-cover.

 _Who never from me shall separate_.

Instead of saying what he knows Oswald doesn’t want to hear (or won’t let himself hear, more like) and what Ed himself doesn’t want to voice just yet, he brings the Bat into the conversation.

In the end, it had been the Bat’s appearance in the city that had finally convinced him to return, almost as if guided by some celestial hand – or perhaps an infernal one, considering what Ed has heard about him.

“The Bat is just some kid,” Oswald says. “I doubt he’d be of any interest to you.”

Maybe not quite enough to warrant a permanent return, no, but enough to make Ed take the step he’s been denying himself from the moment he decided to leave the city behind – a decision he still doesn’t know whether to regret.

“If my informants are to be believed, this _Bat_ man is some sort of demon, risen from the bowels of Hell itself to smite the wicked,” he says instead of voicing what he’s thinking, smiling as best as he can if only to avoid laughing: it’s almost a mythological beast, the Bat of Gotham, one Ed has no reason to believe in.

As soon as the name leaves his mouth, he glances over to see Oswald looking a little bit green.

Things are not as he left them.

 

***

 

The peace treaty, if it can be called that, is simple – there isn’t one.

It’s more of an unspoken agreement, really, a contract for an armistice that lacks due diligence.

In short, it's a far warmer welcome than he’d expected.

An unfortunate side effect of being back on his old stomping grounds, however, is the annoyance he feels towards his chosen profession. Granted, the boredom has been growing steadily with every new case, most of them simple, uninspiring crimes of passion that take less than an hour to solve, but being back in Gotham…

Well.

It just exacerbates a problem already present.

And what few cases he’s managed to get so far – seems being a reformed criminal become a private detective is good for publicity and terrible for business – are painfully dull. Even the Bat, dreaded as he seems to be by the lowlier criminal elements of the city, isn’t nearly as interesting as Ed had expected him to be.

No, what’s far, _far_ more interesting is the flurry of costumed freaks that follows in his wake. Or perhaps, in whose wake the Bat follows, whichever the case may be.

And who better to consult on the topic than the Penguin, the one person who's been here this whole time to watch the performance unfold?

At first, it’s just a single occurrence, just Tuesday night drinks at the Lounge; on the house, at Oswald’s insistence, and better for it – the prices are almost as criminal as most of the VIP patrons.

It’s also a surprisingly good opportunity to renew his network. After all, one must adapt or perish, and considering what little work he’s been getting so far, perhaps it’s time to switch tactics.

So, Ed spends hours with a bottle of wine, his former best friend, and plenty of information. He learns about all sorts of interesting people, about the newcomers on the scene (of whom there are plenty, even if most are behind bars for now) as well as a few unsavory copycats that popped up in the Riddler’s wake.

And it’s really a question of professional pride, making the decision to pay a visit to the particularly daft and boorish one who calls himself the Baffler once he’s finished with the evening’s activities. The other, a Mr. Brown, he’ll give a moment’s reprieve, considering he might be useful later.

Which is all to say Ed’s new role as a collector of information is very much planned.

His renewed friendship with Oswald, however, is not.

_When faced with one, you’ll either have two or none._

Ten years is a long time.

Long enough, it seems, to be able to set aside the dichotomous banality of _forgive_ and _forget_ , and to find a third option. Besides, he has the distinct feeling that Oswald harbors no remorse for what he did just as Ed himself harbors none for his own actions.

It’s easy, that meeting. Oswald doesn’t bring up the past, doesn’t ask where he’s been or what he’s been doing, doesn’t bring up any mutual acquaintances. In its way, it goes to show how much things have changed.

The years apart have been a lesson in patience, truly.

_Reason is an instrument for attaining faith; faith is an instrument for attaining divinity; both are lost once their end is achieved._

For the first time in a while, Ed has faith in the future.

“Same time next week?” he asks once his watch reads well past five in the morning, the table of the booth is littered with empty wine bottles and there’s a pleasant warmth buzzing at the tips of his fingers.

Oswald looks confused but nods after a moment.

It’s surprisingly difficult to walk away without looking back.

 

***

 

Paying a visit to Titus Czonka, alias the Baffler, goes…

Not _well_ , exactly.

Because Czonka makes a fatal mistake, one that Ed cannot let slide, no matter how (mostly) law-abiding he’s been for the past decade.

The fool laughs in his face.

How dare he, this facsimile of a facsimile, dismiss the one who made his mere existence possible? This D-lister, insufferable, ridiculous, moronic loser, dares to laugh in his face? To cite his inspiration as coming from Cluemaster instead of him when he is so clearly ripping off everything Ed had done ten years ago?

At that point, it becomes more than a matter of professional pride.

It becomes a personal insult.

One that he cannot let slide.

“You can lose some and gain some, but you cannot live without me. What am I?” Ed asks, keeping his voice perfectly steady while sliding his hand into his pocket, watching as the brute’s brow furrows.

Incompetent, insolent idiot.

Death is perhaps too kind a fate.

Too late now to change his mind, though.

_A desperate, compulsive need to complete what you've started._

Long, lonely years wasted on proving Oswald wrong.

Long, lonely years wasted drifting through city after city, amusing himself in the pettiest of ways to nurse his wounded pride – because it’s still impossible to tell projection from reflection, to see that to which he’d once been blind.

Oswald had been right, after all.

“The answer is blood. Let’s see how much of it _you’ve_ got,” Ed says before he slashes the knife across the man’s neck, before he watches the life fade from the copycat’s eyes.

It’s an empty victory, if it can even be called one – and he ruined his favorite suit for it, too.

 

***

 

His second visit – third, to be exact, although Ed doesn’t consider his first trip to the Lounge a visit in the traditional sense – goes relatively well, especially seeing how quickly everything has spun out of control.

The… _unfortunate_ incident with the Baffler was just the catalyst for the inevitable break.

Might as well bring back the past.

So, he asks Oswald about Zsasz, about Fries, about Firefly, about Ivy, about all the others he remembers from the past. Everyone who’d been on the side of the Penguin, way back when.

Every answer is just another nail hammering in the thought that he should’ve stayed away.

Zsasz, mercenary turned prophet, preaching oblivion as he carves marks in his skin every time he kills, free of charge.

Fries and his heart of ice, confined in a frosted cell deep in the bowels of Arkham.

Firefly, burning and burning and burning as fervently as stars in the sky.

Ivy, something more than human now, something best avoided.

Ghosts from the past.

Restless, relentless.

“So, you turned yourself into a businessman,” he says, watching as Oswald’s grip tightens around the stem of his wineglass with each name, each lost ally. “To avoid their fate. Or to delay it, more like.”

“Being a full-time crime lord stopped being lucrative once _he_ showed up,” Oswald replies with a shrug, motioning one of the waiters over for another bottle of wine. “Once the Bat started hauling people off to rot in Arkham in a way the police never could, I decided to put my more ambitious plans on hold. Indefinitely.”

The lone knight and all the armies against him, an unfair fight from the start.

But unfair towards whom?

Perhaps Ed had been erroneous in his initial dismissal of Gotham’s caped crusader, after all.

“What if we got rid of him?” he asks, lacing his fingers together on the tabletop to rest his chin on them.

Oswald laughs, the sound barking and alien; a laugh Ed’s never heard from him before. “Why would you want that? If anything, you’re helping him, Ed.”

The sound of his name in Oswald’s voice cracks another pane of the glass separating who Ed has become from who he used to be.

“Tool of thief, toy of queen. Always used to be unseen. Sign of joy, sign of sorrow. Giving all a likeness borrowed. What am I?” he says, bringing his right hand to his temple with a flourish.

“I haven’t the slightest,” Oswald answers, narrowing his eyes.

It’s like he isn’t even trying to play along.

Ed repeats the riddle.


	4. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if i'm being honest, this chapter is what this whole thing has been building towards: more rogues! c:
> 
> and some other things, too.

_If anything, you’re helping him._

Edward Nygma, private detective.

The moniker had been surprisingly well-fitting for the Ed he’d paid a visit to two weeks ago, the one he’d offered whatever truce or agreement stands between them now.

It doesn’t, however, fit the Ed sitting in front of him tonight. That identity seems like an ill-fitting costume now, hints of _him_ seeping through the cracks in the façade.

_Tool of thief, toy of queen. Always used to be unseen. Sign of joy, sign of sorrow. Giving all a likeness borrowed._

The Riddler hasn’t been seen in Gotham for ten years.

Oswald had hoped he would never be seen again.

For some reason, he’d been foolish enough to hope Ed would come back, but not all of him; to hope that there was a possibility for Ed to exist without the Riddler, that the two weren’t intertwined in some indivisible, irreversible way.

Because after all this time, the dreaded question, the enigma wrapped around E. Nygma still remains: how much of him is simply a series of masks to be picked up or discarded at leisure?

Who is the man that looks back from underneath?

Oswald could swear he used to know the answer.

“The answer to your riddle is a mask,” he says once he figures Ed’s patience will outlast his.

And isn’t that something new yet again? Something unpleasant and yet exciting, another piece of an unsolvable puzzle.

Ed smiles, teeth glinting in the low light. “Correct.”

 _Why_ does _a private detective wear a mask?_ Oswald wants to ask, but what would be the point? Unless he figures it out himself, it’s unlikely Ed will give him a satisfactory answer.

Things are never easy with him.

“So, what, you’re just pretending to be reformed? Or pretending not to be? Why?” he asks instead. “How did you put it… to avoid _their_ fate, or to simply delay it? Why did you come back if you _know_ how this is going to end?”

Ed doesn’t reply, just looks at him like there’s an important piece of the puzzle that Oswald is missing, a piece Ed wants him to have but is refusing to give up so easily.

And it’s exactly that silence that reminds him of their last conversation years ago, of the words he’d spoken up on that pier, the pain that even now continues to invade his dreams like a particularly troublesome thief.

_You were the one time I let love weaken me._

_I want you around as a constant reminder to never make that mistake again._

Despite everything that’s happened, despite all the hatred and heartbreak and hurt, he doesn’t want to lose Ed to the Bat.

Because Oswald has forgotten.

Because if there’s still time, there can still be hope.

But hope requires sacrifice; sacrifice he doesn’t know if he can afford to make.

And Ed must notice how tense he is because he leans closer, close enough that Oswald could swear he can hear the cogs turning in that vexing, troublesome mind.

“You said it yourself, Oswald – the Bat is just some kid,” he says before drawing back again and finishing his drink.

And it’s not what he says, exactly, it’s what he doesn’t.

_Why are you scared of him?_

Because Ed doesn’t know; despite all of Oswald’s attempts to make him understand, he still doesn’t see it.

“Didn’t you hear what I said about all the others who used to be around?” Oswald hisses, anger and desperation pushing him to move forward, mirroring Ed’s movement from moments ago. “The Bat takes _everyone_ , lays _everyone_ who tries to go against him to ruins. The reason _I’m_ still here and not rotting away in Arkham, the only reason I still have the Lounge? I _don’t_ deliberately antagonize him. Because I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of what he does to people.”

 _I’m afraid of what he’ll do to you_ , he doesn’t say.

A small, albeit loud, and particularly vindictive part of Oswald is screaming to let Ed have at it, to let him go after the Bat just like everyone else has done, to see him brought low once again. But doing that would be much the same as putting a bullet between Ed’s eyes here and now.

Everyone knows the Bat doesn’t kill.

Because he does something worse – he breaks and breaks and breaks, drives sane men to madness and madmen to sanity, is singlehandedly dismantling everything Oswald has worked half his life to build, everything he’s sacrificed more than his fair share for.

The Bat is going to dismantle Ed, too, take him away just like he’s taken everyone else.

But Ed doesn’t know that, so he smiles, ice-cold and perilous, ignorant of what’s right in front of him as he tends to be. “Help me, then,” he says. “Lead me to the others. Help me understand the Bat and I swear I will get rid of him, one way or another.”

A flash of something familiar deep within his chest.

_Troubled by love, and tormented in every way._

Love, born of destruction.

Destruction, born of love.

Oswald won’t say no, doesn’t even consider the possibility, because ten years is a sliver of forever and he’s denied Ed enough already, for better or worse.

Because there’s nothing he can do to stop Ed once his mind is made up.

Because he has watched too many people batter themselves bloody against the fence the Bat stands behind, desperately trying to get at it, and there’s no doubt in his mind by now that Ed will follow the same path regardless of what Oswald has to say about it.

_You are driven by something much more predictable: a desperate, compulsive need to complete what you've started in exacting fashion._

He had sealed Ed’s fate the moment he’d shown up at that godforsaken office, had unknowingly given him up the moment he stopped being his enemy.

And isn’t that punishment enough?

 

***

 

The Bat looms over Gotham like a shadow, larger than life, marring everything with his mere presence, drawing others to him like moths to a flame.

And the more Ed learns about him, the more he wants to know _why_.

Hence the interviews – if they can be called that, because other than the presence of the handheld tape-recorder and a single question, there isn’t much they have in common.

Ed suspects he wouldn’t have had nearly as much success in getting the opportunity to talk to half these people without Oswald’s help; the Penguin might not be the kingpin of the underworld anymore, but he still has connections.

Connections that Ed himself doesn’t have just yet.

“Who or what is the Bat?” he asks the ones who agree to speak to him – or, to be exact, the ones Oswald managed to convince to speak to them. There aren’t _that_ many, granted, and plenty of those Ed has deemed worth his while are locked up in either Arkham or Blackgate, unreachable for the time being.

But there’s enough for a start.

*

“Br… _Batman_ is overbearing, ridiculous, stubborn, and occasionally infuriating,” Selina Kyle, nowadays known as Catwoman, tells him.

There’s hardly anything left in her polished appearance of the scrawny street kid Ed remembers her as, though he’s sure the same steely spine lays buried beneath her designer clothes and jewelry.

Only while going over the recording, he can hear her mumbling something additional, something he hadn’t caught before.

“His heart is in the right place, though. Even if sometimes I really, _really_ wish it wasn’t.”

*

“He’s a lunatic in a costume like the rest, running around this city like he owns it. Except he’s even worse: he’s self-righteous to boot. A goddamn son of a bitch that needs to be put in his place,” Black Mask says, shaking a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it before offering the pack to them; Oswald considers it with quiet contemplation before accepting.

 _Roman Sionis may be young, but what he lacks in age he more than makes up for in cruelty and ambition_ , he tells Ed when they’re driving away.

 _I wonder who_ that _sounds like_ , Ed replies, holding back a smile.

Oswald scoffs. _I have at least a semblance of decorum. Roman has none._

*

“The Batman is a product of fear,” the Scarecrow says, leaning back in his chair, his long, skeletally thin fingers tapping a dissonant rhythm on the table as he regards them with cold, calculating eyes.

It’s unsettling, that look – then again, most of the man’s demeanor is.

He pauses for a moment before cocking his head and adding, “However, in my opinion, the far more interesting question is this: what are _you_ afraid of?”

“Tax season,” Oswald replies easily.

Crane laughs, wheezing and winded like an asthmatic running a marathon.

Still, it does manage to break some of the tension in the room.

*

“Batsy is _mine_ ,” the Joker says simply, red-stained mouth stretched wide to reveal far too many teeth, acid-green eyes sharp and intelligent in that unnaturally pale face. He laughs jovially and leans closer, staring at Ed as the stench of industrial chemicals and gunpowder becomes near-overpowering.

Ed doesn’t know what else to do so he simply nods, trying to convey understanding where he has no idea what exactly he’s agreeing to. Beside him, Oswald is uncharacteristically quiet.

Nevertheless, Ed’s reaction seems to placate the Joker because he draws back and grins almost sweetly. “Such a gentleman, too, my dulcet Dark Knight. Always goes home alone, no matter how late we stay out dancing. I’m sure _you_ know the type.”

Ed nods again, a little bit easier this time.

*

Oswald himself – referred to as the Penguin for the sake of the interview logs – refuses to answer the question at all, only stares at the tape-recorder with distaste. “You already know what I think. Is this really necessary?”

When prompted further, he smacks the tape-recorder off the table, sending it clattering to the floor, before ordering one of his lackeys to bring them a bottle of wine. “I don’t want to talk about _him_ right now. Call me selfish or greedy if you want, Ed, but I’m wasting more than enough of my time on him already. I _will not_ give up any more.”

Ed picks up the tape-recorder, dusts it off, and lets the matter rest.

*

“He’s just as mad as the rest of us,” the Mad Hatter says, a half-finished trilby precariously perched on his lap.

There’s a strange twitchiness about him that Ed doesn’t remember from ten years ago.

Then again, it doesn’t appear that Jervis remembers him, either.

“Such games we play, just wait and see! Tell me, please, you’ll stay for tea,” the Mad Hatter continues, grinning hopefully.

Oswald politely but firmly declines the offer before Ed can say anything, abruptly ending the interview.

*

The sunlight dances in Poison Ivy’s fiery hair and casts strange shadows over her green-tinged skin, leaving the impression that living vines are writhing just beneath the surface.

“Bat _man_ is a thorn in my side I want to get rid of,” she says, the nauseatingly sweet scent of rotting fruit hanging in the air around her.

“Why?” Ed asks. “Can you elaborate on that?”

Ignoring him, Ivy looks to Oswald. “I did my part. Now leave me alone.”

When Ed doesn’t budge, Oswald tugs him away from the greenhouse, whispering that he _does not_ want to make her angry and that he should be thankful she’d agreed to meet with him at all.

Behind them, Ed can hear her laughing, the sound strangely hypnotic.

Oswald rolls his eyes and hastens his step, pulling him along.

*

“He was a friend,” Harvey Dent says, voice laced with hurt and wistful disappointment.

“ **He was a traitor** ,” Two-Face growls, voice filled with anger and harsh hatred.

Both refuse to elaborate on what they mean by that, and a look from Oswald tells Ed not to push it.

 

***

 

Once they’re done with the bulk of the interviews, Ed briefly considers approaching Jim Gordon about Batman before shelving the idea. It wouldn’t be of any use, anyway – according to Oswald, Jim continues to publicly deny the existence of the Batman as vehemently and desperately as ever.

In any case, Ed knows the answer to the riddle of the Bat is hidden somewhere in the way _they_ see him, somewhere in the screaming colors of his army of freaks – in their dizzying array of interpretations, the plethora of ideas and superstitions that both support and contradict each other.

It takes four months before he gets to see the Bat for himself, four months before he finally understands.

It’s late at night on Tuesday, or more accurately, it’s early morning on Wednesday.

Another night he’s spent at the Iceberg Lounge – time he’s come to view as a treat, as valued moments where there’s something else to focus on besides the elusive Bat.

They’re nights that bring comfortable companionship in a way he’d thought impossible after what happened all those years ago.

Nights endlessly suspended in time, filled to the brim with interminable possibilities.

Nights where he finds himself forgetting what it’s like to be alone.

 _Who never from me shall separate_.

Gotham isn’t the only home he’s come back to, it seems.

And thinking about that is exactly why the Bat manages to catch him unawares in his apartment.

“Riddler,” the Bat says from somewhere in the shadows, the word low and gravelly from what sounds like a voice modulator.

 _How theatrical_ , Ed thinks. All things considered, he’d figured the Bat would be; it’s good to know he was right.

“I was wondering when I’d catch your attention,” he responds calmly, even though he can feel his heartbeat hammering somewhere near his throat.

“Congratulations,” the Bat says dryly. “You’ve got it. What are you doing back in Gotham?”

Ed grins, forcing himself to take a deep breath before answering. “Why, I thought you were supposed to be _The World’s Greatest Detective_. So, **_detect_** , Dark Knight. What _is_ the Riddler doing back in Gotham?”

A bluff if he’s ever done one; he’s not the Riddler, at least not in the same way he used to be.

But the Bat doesn’t know that.

“I’m not here to play games, Nygma. Tell me the truth. _Now_ ,” the Bat growls, probably scowling under that cowl of his. “Or I’ll make you. Your choice.”

He _is_ impressive up close, even if Ed can only see a vague outline, confident in the shadows.

But Ed can fix that, can level the playing field a little.

“Is violence really how you solve all your problems? How disappointing,” he says, one hand inching towards the light switch while the other reaches for the switchblade in his pocket. “All right, then, I’ll level with you. Riddle me this, _Bat_ man: how do you escape a dark room with no doors or windows?”

“What?”

“You turn on the light.”

A flick of the light switch; a flash of exhilaration, the kind he hasn’t felt in years.

A man in a black costume, illuminated for a fraction of a second before there’s the sound of something metallic clanging against the floor and a cloud of smoke that makes Ed’s eyes water and his throat constrict just as he’s about to lunge for the Bat.

Instead of attacking, he’s forced to double over coughing, trying to clear his lungs from the irritant.

Half a minute later, once the smoke has cleared and he can, for the most part, see and breathe again, the Bat is gone.

 

***

 

Oswald knows it’s over the moment Ed bursts through the door of his office, bright-eyed and panting.

Four months of work and resources spent on keeping Ed under the Bat’s radar, all gone to waste.

Four months spent living in a dream, chasing down an elusive feeling he’d forgotten to forget.

Four months spent knowing there’s no light at the end of this particular tunnel, but venturing down anyway if only for the sake of company, all because he’d forgotten what it was like to not be lonely.

“You saw him,” Oswald says, the foregone conclusion forcing its way out of his mouth before he can stop it.

Ed nods, eyes wide, shoulders shaking ever so slightly. “He was… he was in my apartment. Waiting for me in the dark.”

Oswald fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“That’s what he does,” he says instead, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. “Have a seat. You want something to drink?”

Ed nods again before moving over to the sofa.

Oswald gets up, gets the decanter from the cupboard and two glasses, fills one halfway and the other wholly, downs half of the larger one before handing the other over.

“I killed the Baffler,” Ed says. “But _he_ didn’t know, didn’t even mention it. I suppose I have to thank you for that.”

“Would you believe me if I said I did the cover-up solely for my own benefit?” Oswald asks, sitting down on the sofa.

Ed smiles, more melancholy than joyful. “Not really.”

They’re quiet for a time, side by side, the only sound the distant howling of sirens somewhere down on the streets.

Another piece locked away, another battle lost before it could even begin.

“I know you won’t stop going after him,” Oswald says eventually, allowing himself another hearty sip of his drink.

_I can’t change who you are. I don’t know if I'd even want to if I could._

Ed doesn’t reply, but his silence is answer enough – another foregone conclusion, another sliver of truth closing the distance that stubbornly remains between them.

Ten years is a sliver of forever.

“You kept asking why I came back,” Ed says after another while. “I spent ten years hating you, ten years plotting to kill you. But when I got back, even after everything you did to me, after everything I did to you, when I stood there, I just… couldn’t.”

Oswald knows what he means.

Love, born of destruction.

Destruction, born of love.

So, he sets his pride aside for once in his life and allows himself to try and reach out, to try and bridge the gap, because there’s nothing left to lose.

“Some things never go away,” Oswald says, downing the last of his drink and setting the empty glass aside. “For what it’s worth, I never intended to hurt you as much as I did.”

Ed laughs at that, soft and more than a little bit sad. “That’s what made it all so much worse.”

The sirens blare again, closer this time.

A glance towards the window reveals it’s almost sunrise.

“Do you want to know what I asked him, right before he bolted?” Ed asks eventually, looking to the window to observe the approaching light before looking back to him.

“A riddle, I expect,” Oswald says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. As much as he hates that the Bat is hijacking Ed’s attention, there’s some satisfaction in knowing that Ed had, despite all odds, bested him.

 _This time_ , the paranoid part of his mind whispers, but he chooses to ignore it.

Ed huffs a laugh. “I said, _how do you escape a dark room with no doors or windows_?”

Oswald thinks for a moment.

“How?” he asks once he realizes he has no idea.

“You turn on the light,” Ed says and laughs, not quite like his old self but not exactly the original Riddler, either – and perhaps that’s for the best.

Oswald laughs along.

The first rays of sunlight finally break through to cast an intricate pattern of light and shadows on the floorboards.


	5. Epilogue

There have been plenty of discussions about the location – and precise nature – of Hell.

There are some who believe the entrance of Hell is in a dark, gloomy forest.

There are some who believe Hell is other people.

There are some who, understandably, don’t believe in Hell at all.

There are some who, rather simply, believe Hell to be underground.

There are some who, based on experience, believe Hell to be somewhere in the rotten core of Gotham City.

See, Gotham City... it feeds on misery, wraps itself in it like a funeral shroud, loves it more than anything else.

Gotham’s people are touched by it, too, that melancholia that permeates the streets and buildings just like the haze wrapping the city in its embrace like a jealous lover.

The city roils and breathes and sprawls, a stage set for a play of magnificent, colossal proportions.

Somewhere far away, there are places bathed in golden sunlight, offsetting Gotham’s abundance of dark with an abundance of light, neither necessarily better than the other.

In some realities, Gotham is just a city, a dot on a map, a grid-work of streets and buildings, a pile of metal and concrete.

In most, it is so much more.

The age of monsters is everlasting in a snapshot moment, a handful of decades repeating over and over in eternity, burning into the city’s collective memory and saturating it with murder and mayhem.

And Gotham's people adapt, find a way to live in the dark, find a way to thrive where others would crumble.

They find a way to love, _despite_.

Or, perhaps, _because of_.

One day, Gotham learns to look to the shadows with hope, to listen for the whisper of fabric wings, soft as nightfall, and welcome light born from deepest darkness.

One day, Gotham learns to put its faith in the Bat, just as the Bat himself learns to put his faith in the city.

After all, in the golden age, which is really the same as the age of monsters, there will always be a Bat, just as there will always be those who chase after him.

And both Hell and Heaven will be what one chooses them to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've stuck with me this far, from the bottom of my heart: thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ bctrogues


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